Spanish artist Amelia De la Mora landed in Oklahoma looking for a cowboy. She was twenty-six, hungry for romance, and determined to fulfill a promise she made to herself half her life ago. Only days before, she had been selling modest oil paintings on the streets of Sevilla, when Amelia De la Mora felt someone had sent her a sign. An American sailor, newly stationed in Rota, stumbled upon her outside her favorite cafetería near the park, curious to check out the culture. It was the way the man called her ma’am, the way he touched the tip of his baseball cap as he nodded his head, the amount of money he was willing to pay for an unimpressive portrait of a lobster lying dead on a pillow. It’d come to her in a dream, she painted it in a week, and shelved it for emergencies.
The American man was willing to pay almost 20,000 pesetas for it. He said it reminded him of his college roommate, an old pal who drowned somewhere off Martha’s Vineyard. Perhaps it was the pang of a lost friend, or a casual American arrogance, overvaluing his own dollar, but the man had just given Amelia De la Mora enough money for a one-way ticket to the United States.
Her father, an alférez for the Spanish Navy, raised her on classic American westerns he’d acquired on deployment. These films (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Magnificent Seven, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, High Noon, and Unforgiven) populated the silence of their modest two-bedroom home. She and her father would watch these films on VHS, on a small television with the VCR built in that sat on their kitchen counter. Rota was home to many American sailors, and in exchange for the movies, Amelia De la Mora’s father would bring the men to nightclubs in Sevilla so they could meet the right kind of Spanish women. When her father would return to the ship, Amelia De la Mora would return to the westerns, watching each on repeat until her father was home again, a new movie in hand. This is how she learned English. This is how she learned love.
She’d almost considered thinking it over, maybe using the money on fresh canvas and oils, but decided thinking would be a mistake. Like her art, she would leave this up to instinct.
She rode the train to Madrid, caught a taxi to the airport. She checked her bag, exchanged her money, and almost bought the People magazine with Princess Diana on the front. Diana on the Edge, it said. On the flight, she dreamt of the American man’s college roommate. He was handsome, in an earned sort of way, the kind of dark hair that didn’t grow in any direction, the large nose he’d grown into with drinking weight. They were swimming together in a pool with no borders, something like a flat and shallow sea. The American man’s college roommate asked Amelia De la Mora if she’d ever been in love, to which she said: Too many times. He asked her if she loved him, to which she said: Probably. He smiled, puffed his cheeks wide, and disappeared beneath the water. A minute, a week, a moment passed, and a lobster floated to the surface, snapping his claws.
Amelia De la Mora deplaned in Tulsa, Oklahoma at 6:00pm and followed a herd of half-sleep, jacket-clad travelers out of the terminal and towards baggage claim. The escalator dropped her into a collection of napping conveyor belts and her herd shuffled into the far right corner where one stirred to life.
Luggage pressed through the plastic curtains. Duffle bags, sporting equipment, treasure chests, a turquoise mailbox. Amelia De la Mora positioned herself inside one of the bends of their conveyor belt and searched for her purple and weathered suitcase, but soon the turquoise mailbox passed her once more and there was no sign of her luggage.
Her father did not own their home. His Oldsmobile was almost twenty years old. He only traveled out of Sevilla, out of Spain, because he was a military man. Had he chosen another profession, Amelia De la Mora believed he might’ve spent his entire life within a two-block radius. He cared little of possessions, of dreams and ambitions. He only wanted his daughter to appreciate the value of hard work. When he died a year before (a severe case of untreated pneumonia, a refusal to stay in bed), he’d only left her the purple suitcase and his VHS collection of American westerns. Amelia De la Mora was waiting for both, when the turquoise mailbox passed a third time.
Most of the herd had already left, save for a few. She caught an older mustachioed man in a suede jacket watching her from the other side. She heard a young boy whimper to his mother, asking for the Michael Jordan action figure he’d packed before the flight. Amelia De la Mora found solace in their presence, in the white noise of chatter, but by the time the mailbox passed her a fourth time, she was alone in the quiet hum of the looping conveyor belt.
Her mother left only months after she was born. Emotional, her father had said. Paranoid. Amelia De la Mora never quite understood what this meant, but sometimes, when a painting of hers indulged in the surreal, when it would go unfinished, her father would say, You must get that from your mother. However, when she felt sure of her work, when she dragged it across the park to the cafetería and sold it for grocery money, her father would clap his hands, lose his eyes behind a smile, and say, This, you get from me.
She’d stopped counting the revolutions when a buzzer sounded and the conveyor belt paused, leaving the turquoise mailbox within her reach. It was made of a standard aluminum, shut tight, its flag an unnatural white. Amelia De la Mora waited for someone to approach her, to ask her if everything was alright, but no one came. Her English was good—she felt confident she could ask for help—but this being her first hour in the United States, she was paralyzed by the thought of speaking to someone. She’d made a mistake coming here. What had she been thinking?
And then Amelia De la Mora remembered what she’d been thinking: stick to your gut. She’d followed a sign because she believed in magic and she believed in love. The American man with the southern drawl had been a sign. The amount he’d paid for her dead lobster had been a sign. Therefore, her missing luggage must have been a sign, too, as was this lonely, abandoned mailbox. She’d almost considered weighing her options but decided once more that thinking would be a mistake.
Another buzzer sounded, and Amelia De la Mora snatched the mailbox from the conveyor belt. She held it close to her chest, finding pleasure in its weight, how the cool of the aluminum eased her racing heart. She carried it across baggage claim, through the sliding glass doors of the airport, and into the backseat of a cab driven by a man named Sylvester.
Where are you going? he said with an accent almost too familiar.
To which she replied, Hablas español?
Sí, he said, and Amelia De la Mora smiled in the delight of having found another sign. A donde?
Hotel, por favor.
Sylvester tapped his steering wheel, perhaps waiting for further instructions, the name of the hotel, a side of town even, but Amelia De la Mora sat silent, hugging her turquoise mailbox. Sylvester then nodded, pulled the car from the curb and away from the airport. Maybe he was desperate for company, in dire need of some extra money, or simply advantageous, but Sylvester decided he’d take this young woman on a longer drive, to a town he’d only heard of called Catalonia—another sign.
On the drive into this town, the weather changed. As the sun leaned into the west, the clouds darkened and crept into one another. The little light left seemed to disappear as they stretched and blanketed the sky. Then came the wind, something like atmospheric contractions. It seemed to envelope the taxi before shrinking back into an absence.
Sylvester dropped her at a family-owned inn downtown, a building over a hundred years old, and said, Cuídate, before asking if she had any pesetas left. He hadn’t seen Spanish currency in a long time and hoped to show his children at home. Amelia De la Mora gave him the little she had, and Sylvester sped away into a half-lit west. She stepped towards the entrance of the inn, thunder rolled nearby, and she was grateful for the few American dollars she had in her clutch. A gust of wind swept through, snapping the lid of the mailbox shut, and her stomach thundered in its own way. She looked to her left, saw a white-striped, burgundy awning, and decided check-in could wait. Amelia De la Mora could use a coffee and a pastry, and she wondered if these Americans knew what to do with a roaster.
The name of the café was Six-Speed and claimed to sell award-winning and locally roasted coffee. Through its large glass window, she recognized a piece of art on the wall. L’etat de Grâce by René Magritte, though of course, this was a photocopy, a bicycle sitting suspended above a smoldering cigar. It was unremarkable, given Magritte’s most notable work, but Amelia De la Mora held her own prejudice. After all, Magritte was a surrealist, and when it came down to it, she was partial to her fellow Spaniard, Salvador Dalí; though, admittedly, she understood why others preferred the Belgian artist. He had a way of giving the surreal a more digestible flavor. Dalí was a bit more unapologetic. She was about to open the door to Six-Speed when another gust of wind swiped through, knocking the mailbox from her arms, blowing it a few feet down the sidewalk. When she kneeled down to pick it up, sirens rang from the sky.
Firefighters didn’t fly. Ambulances didn’t soar. No, this was something else. Something for which the movies hadn’t prepared her. It reminded her of war, of the training drills her father spoke of. She grabbed the mailbox once more and searched the street, finding no passing vehicles, no flashing lights, only the realization that she was once again alone. The street empty. The sidewalks empty. Her plans, empty. Then a smaller sound. The ring of a bell.
Ma’am?
Amelia De la Mora turned to see a shorter, broad-shouldered man, apron around his neck, backwards cap atop his head. His beard was either graying or coated with flour, but his eyes sprung into view like glass in a desert.
Do you need somewhere to take shelter?
The siren made it difficult to decipher what was going on. She stepped closer to the man, hoping to find clarification within proximity. He motioned her to come closer, and soon she was inside Six-Speed, following the man through a door behind the counter, down a set of steps, before deciding to take a moment to think.
Is everything okay? the man said. His voice was a thick whisper, soft and strained.
I don’t understand.
We’ve got to hide.
From what?
The storm. A tornado’s coming.
A tornado? They were real?—well, of course they were real—but Amelia De la Mora hadn’t given them one thought before this. She wasn’t even sure what they looked like, how they moved, the damage they caused. The back of her neck turned cold, the hair on her arms stood up. Tornado. Even the word was alien. It might as well have been jackalope.
Am I in trouble? she said, and she could feel the fear in her throat, the way the words fell out of her mouth, how her accent probably made her incoherent.
The man scratched his beard and furrowed his brow. He tugged on the apron around his neck. He stepped closer to her, took her hand into his, and said, You will be safe down here. It’ll be over before you know it. And maybe it was the warmth of his palms or the lingering scent of coffee grounds, but Amelia De la Mora felt safe.
He led her to a small ten-by-ten concrete room. On the floor was a shag rug and small camping lamp. In the corner was a crate of wine bottles and above them hung a bicycle wheel which spun despite how still it felt inside the bunker. It turned to the right, like time speeding up, a minute passing in the span of seconds. The sirens could still be heard from above, though they were barely a murmur.
I’m Norman.
Amy, she said, because she assumed it was a better fit.
What’s with the mailbox?
And Amelia De la Mora laughed, a cackle that bounced off the concrete walls around them. She’d trusted her gut, which led her to the middle of America, where she’d lost her luggage, where she now found herself in a storm bunker with an unkempt man and an approaching tornado, all because she hoped to find a cowboy who would love her. How pathetic. How ridiculous. If only her father could see this, she could never shake the disappointment. There was a painting in this, something like a tall tale, but how could she ever capture it?
The bicycle wheel spun faster and the wind could be heard barreling over top of them. Norman pulled a corkscrew from his pocket, two small coffee mugs from the crate, and passed one to Amelia De la Mora. He uncorked a bottle of wine, a sharp red with a scent that immediately coated her tongue. Norman filled her mug halfway and raised his own. She followed suit, they clinked their mugs, and the bicycle wheel continued to spin. Norman pressed his back to the wall and slid down until he was seated on the floor. He scratched his beard and patted his face.
First time in Oklahoma?
America.
Business or pleasure?
Amelia De la Mora didn’t quite catch the phrase, but thought she might have heard painter, and too nervous to ask him to repeat the question, she confirmed, I am a painter.
Did you paint that? he said, pointing his mug at the turquoise mailbox.
She realized she was cradling the object like a mother would a child. There were fresh scuffs from where it struck the sidewalk earlier. She rubbed them with her thumb. She played with the flag, moving it up and down, finding pleasure in its motion. Had it not been for popular culture, Amelia De la Mora wouldn’t recognize what she was holding. The letter boxes back home didn’t have flags nor were they shaped like a loaf of bread. She wasn’t even sure what the function of this little flag would be. Was this to signal that there was mail to pick up, or was it a matter of urgency, like final notices for a bill? Perhaps it was a matter of style. Some people used the flag for secrets, others for correspondence that had nothing to do with the postman. Amelia De la Mora drank more of the wine, still playing with the flag, and could feel her imagination getting the best of her. What else could be put in this loaf-shaped box? What else might leave it? She imagined a nest within, birds or wasps or jackalopes sprouting from its mouth. Maybe the flag was an antler. Maybe it was an antenna. Maybe the box was a time capsule, intended to remain shut like a tomb. She finished her wine, extended the mug without thinking, and Norman filled it without saying anything. Amelia De la Mora was no longer paying attention to the wheel on the wall, even as it slowed down. She didn’t care whether or not she could hear the wind above, the catastrophic damage that may or may not await them. This is what she called her actual. An untimely fuel. An unsolicited drug. She wanted to fill this mailbox with the world, with her love, and she wanted to do it now.
Do you have paint? A canvas? she said, conscious of the urgency in her voice, the sense of privilege she must be exuding. She hadn’t meant it to sound like a demand.
No, ma’am. Just regular house paint, but it’s cheap and old, and I imagine you need something a little different.
Are you a cowboy? It wasn’t supposed to come out. This was the danger of her actual. When she was under its influence, she was dangerously inclined. As she continued to fill the mailbox with ideas, she wondered more about the man across from her, what he could do with his hands, what that beard might taste like.
I went to Oklahoma State for a bit, if that’s what you mean.
This mailbox. It is especial.
Is it an heirloom?
It could be.
Then Amelia De la Mora was reminded that this mailbox had been taken from its home. That regardless of her own imagination, it was no longer serving its intended purpose, and as this realization sunk in, she grew into sadness. Someone missed this mailbox, because how could they not? What had become a sign for her had previously been a service for someone else. A family maybe. A father, a daughter, correspondence lost in a purgatory of unable to deliver. She set her mug to the side. She remembered where she was. Lost. A tornado. A stranger.
Are you okay? Norman said.
I feel like … she couldn’t find the words, not in English. As hard as she’d tried to propel doubt, it now crept in like roaches in the night. Her father’s face, his unwillingness to meet her eyes, the pesetas she wasted on another fruitless whim. From her mother, indeed. Do you believe in signs? she said.
The bicycle wheel made one more rotation, then went still. No noise crept in from outside. Amelia De la Mora fingered the lid of the mailbox and waited for Norman to say something, but no words came. Instead, she felt his hand reach for hers, smelled the wine on his breath. She felt their fingers entwine and then she was on her feet. Norman took the mailbox from her arms and rocked it in his arms.
You know, if I hadn’t heard this thing clang about out there, I never would’ve looked outside. He pulled on the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. Amelia De la Mora couldn’t tell if the wind snapped it stuck or if Norman put little effort into opening it.
My father would not let me check the mail. He said nothing good came from a letter. She remembered once breaking the rule in middle school. Her father had refused to take her to the museum after she spilled paint on her bedroom carpet, and, while he was running an errand, she heard the squeak and clap of the letterbox outside their door. She poked her hand outside, slipped her hand through the flap, and was surprised to find nothing inside.
When I was kid, I never saw the mailman, Norman said. So I assumed these things were magic. Shut something in, raise the flag, and it disappeared. It’s kind of true, I guess.
Her actual was receptive to this, and Amelia De la Mora found new faith in her journey. She was not lost, because this was where she was meant to be. She reached into her clutch, removed a chewed pencil, and said, We should try.
Upstairs it was night. The sirens were silent, the wind was gone. In puddles of streetlight she could see branches and other debris. In the distance, someone was playing music. Six-Speed felt like a newly discovered cave, cold and abandoned. Norman set the mailbox on the counter and searched for something to write on. Would a paper bag work?
Amelia Da la Mora didn’t answer because she’d already decided what to mark up. She lifted the photocopy of L’etat de Grâce from the wall and removed it from its frame. At the counter, she lay the image upside down and readied her pencil. Magritte would not have become the artist he was if not for Dalí. He would have remained a cubist, maybe, or an unfinished work of himself. She began to recreate L’etat de Grâce for her own, slowing tracing the shape of the bicycle on the back of the picture, a reflection of the original. Magritte was great, but only because Dalí opened something within him. Where there used to be wheels, she drew Norman’s eyes. Instead of a smoldering cigar, she drew a bottle of wine, corked and leaking. Do you like art? she said.
I like what you’re doing here.
I am trusting my gut and my gut says this, and she tapped her sketch. What does your gut say? Amelia De la Mora was aware she was giving Norman an opportunity to turn their evening into a moment, an affair, and this was okay. She believed in opening doors. Whether or not he would, she couldn’t say for sure, but she hoped he would choose not to kiss her. That he would contribute something to her new L’etat de Grâce. Even if it was only a line or two.
Norman reached across the counter and gently tugged the pencil from her hands. He pulled the picture closer to himself and started to erase the pupils and shading from the eyes, his eyes, leaving them pale, white, and empty. In place, he sketched out two small rectangles, crude and uneven. Around each, he drew a rounded, wavy border.
What is this? she said.
Stamps, he said.
And Amelia De la Mora reached across the counter, grabbed his apron, and pulled him in for a kiss. You are not a cowboy, she said, studying the flour in his beard and kissing him once more. Together they added more details to the drawing: a label for the bottle, the American flag within the left stamp, the Spanish in the right. Norman replaced the leaking drops of wine with coffee beans and Amelia De la Mora placed shoes on the bicycle’s pedals. When they were finished, she said, Now we see if magic is real.
She folded their artwork in half and Norman found an envelope in his back office. They sealed it shut and Amelia De la Mora addressed it to The Observer, thinking now of the little she knew of quantum physics, of what it meant to exist in a super position. She preferred magic, but sometimes her actual would embrace the suggestions of science, because fuel was fuel, and art was art. Dalí engaged with science as well, leaning into the opportunities of tomorrow, and Amelia De la Mora liked to believe she shared his artistic ideology. He’d been dead for five years now, and she’d frequently forget, lost in a continuum of tomorrows.
With a grunt and a soft curse, Norman managed to pry the mailbox open and together they placed the envelope inside. Now what?
We wait, she said.
This was the difference between magic and technology, of her mailbox and the growing trend of e-mail; magic required the patience of faith. Magic didn’t function with the click of a button—it only blossomed within a spiritual trust. It succeeded when we needed it most.
Amelia De la Mora shut the turquoise mailbox and raised the white flag. Norman offered to grab more wine but she wanted an American coffee. She wanted to take in his craft and absorb what she could while her actual remained engaged. Norman explained that he roasted the beans himself; beans he purchased from Ethiopia, Columbia, Guatemala. How decidedly un-American, she thought. Once he was finished, he ground them for different uses. Tonight, he would be making a French press, so he would keep the grounds coarse and even. The point, he said, was to bring out the flavor of the coffee without losing any of the oils from the grounds. The steeping was most important, because this is where the body of the coffee was formed. You had to find a balance, the delicious spot between underwhelming and over-extraction. Amelia Da la Mora was familiar with this, but preferred hearing it now in Norman’s American accent.
Four minutes wait time was his recommendation, which sounded good to her. He poured boiling water on the grounds, sat the plunger on top, and set the timer. I have a son, he told her, his voice breaking on son. He’s three years old and lives with his mother in Florida. This shop was my father’s and he passed it on to me, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to pass it on to him. Norman was crying now, fingers to his lips, and Amelia De la Mora felt her eyes drop to her hands. Her actual was nearing its end, shame lingering outside. Quickly, tomorrow was almost here. But I hope, he said.
She turned away and imagined a little boy coloring at the table. Is the storm gone for good?
I believe so.
The timer went off and Norman pressed the plunger of the French press. He poured each of them a cup, cut each a slice of coffee cake, and wiped his eyes with his apron. Amelia De la Mora imagined how tornadoes might move, whether they moved in a straight line, or in one large circle. She wondered if there could be two at once, destined to merge before they faded away. Maybe they returned like boomerangs. She sipped her American coffee, pressed a hand to the mailbox, and said, I believe, too.
It’s time? Norman said and removed his apron from his neck.
It’s time, she said.
With the counter’s help, the mailbox sat just below her bosom and when she opened it, she could only see an inch inside. Norman sipped his coffee with his eyes shut, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth, steam seeping into his beard. Amelia De la Mora stuck her hand inside, and, reaching deeper, was surprised by what she felt.
